I will tell you the secret of making a strapping 18 year old football player turn ghost white and weave on unsteady knees.  You don't have to touch him.  No poisons or voodoo curses are involved.  All it takes is a determined aunt, a New Year's Resolution, and no escape route.

We're about half way through my nephew's placement here.  Nine months down and nine to go until I drive him to his university dorm, give him incredibly wise advice, hug him goodbye, and drive joyously home again.

He's more agreeable than most young men, I think.  He agrees to all sorts of things like cleaning up his room when I ask him to, but as far as following up his easy acquiesence with actual work, well, that's a completely different story.  He is straight from that parable in the Bible about the two son who are told to do a job by their father.  One says "no" but does as he's told, the other says "yes" and doesn't do it.  Guess which one my nephew does the terrific impression of--go ahead, give it a guess.

In the nine months we have left together, the social worker who is supervising his placement here has charged me with giving him a complete course in adult life skills.  From what I've seen, the guy has the social thing down cold.   He makes plans, he wheedles the use of the car from his uncle, he's gone most nights.  He has a job, too;  it's the best sort of job for someone who has a busy social life.  The restaurant always overbooks staff and sends the extra guy home.  Guess which guy gets sent home every darn time.  Go ahead;  give it a guess.

I've done a pretty good job nagging C. into filling out college applications and he's been accepted at one school and is waiting to hear from another one which he'd rather go to.  I've given him my take on the job situation.  By the middle of June, the boy won't have a cent that he doesn't work for, so he needs to get a job that will let him eat something besides burgers and shakes from the restaurant he "works" at.  Things like vegetables, fruits, and popcorn require actual cash and a job where you're always the extra help that's sent home won't buy you much at the market.  Therefore, a real job is necessary.

The area I've really lagged in is teaching C. how to keep his place clean enough that guests won't be too grossed out by the mess to visit him and clean enough that he won't get himself sick if he chances eating something he gets out of his own kitchen.   He's perfectly content to let me handle those kinds of things and doesn't interfere with my dishwashing, bathroom cleaning, or picking up after everyone.  However that's not going to help him in nine months when his college roommate wants him kicked out of the room C. has turned into a toxic waste site.

And that--and the check-in we have scheduled to have with the social worker next week--is why my Number One New Year's Resolution is to put C. through a nearly painless program in which he'll learn the basics and in which he'll be nagged to do them enough to maybe establish a couple of good habits. 

And that leads me to the secret I promised to share with you, Dear Reader.  If you want to make a musclebound young man weak at the knees, take him into the smallest room in the house, and say, "Your job this month is to clean the bathroom every day.   Here are the cleaning supplies.  You start by cleaning the toilet...."

It works a charm.